Western Digital Caviar SE16 review

Performance plus value for money

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Our Verdict

If you really can't stretch your budget to the Barracuda, then this is the only other choice

For

Decent read speed

Great value

Against

Poor burst speed

The Western Digital drive proves to be a most awkward drive to set up, requiring assorted jumper shenanigans to get our PC to even recognise the drive. Performancewise however, it comes out on top.

At 32p per GB, it's one of the best value drives we've tested and, with an average read time of 62MB/sec, it's certainly speedy.

The only place where this drive falls down is in its burst speed. This is the maximum speed that data can transfer between the device and the CPU, and the Caviar is the drops below the ideal 130MB/sec mark, coming in at around 127MB/ sec.

However, the drive offers good value for money, and it outperforms a lot of other horizontal storage media we've tested. It certainly scores well in all the areas that count. Dave James